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2,000-year-old Bible fragment now available online

Contains one of oldest existing copies of the Ten Commandments

Published: 01/04/2013 at 11:01 PM

(JewishVoiceNY) One of the oldest extant copies of the Ten Commandments from the Hebrew bible dating back 2000 years is the latest historical text to become part of the Cambridge Digital Library’s online treasure trove, according to media reports. Thousands of pages of fragile religious manuscripts are now available for perusal by internet users in a series of high-quality, zoom-friendly images.

Prior to the landmark discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls by a Bedouin shepherd in Israel in 1947, the document, also known as the “Nash Papyrus” or “The Ten Commandments” was the oldest known manuscript containing pieces of the original Hebrew bible, according to LiveScience. The document gets its name from an Egyptologist named Walter Llewellyn Nash who purchased the invaluable text in 1902.